WriterDojo: Writing for Readers—and a Living
If you’ve ever seriously considered writing, then you know there’s no shortage of experts willing to tell aspiring authors how to write. Rules, formulas, workshops, and competing schools of thought abound. And if you don’t know any better—well, you’re the mark. Fortunately, there are working writers willing to offer practical advice who understand that telling a good story and building a successful writing career are related but different pursuits.
That’s the WriterDojo, hosted by professional authors Larry Correia and Steve Diamond.
The WriterDojo podcast offers frank, entertaining discussions of storytelling, craft, and the business of publishing. Steve and Larry’s advice starts with what works for the story and its readers (and why), rather than treating a particular literary philosophy as gospel.
They treat writing rules as tools. Some are broadly useful; others depend on the story being told and the readers it’s intended to reach.
Consider genre. Bookstores and online retailers need categories to sell books, but those classifications aren’t immutable laws of storytelling. Reader expectations, however, are very real. Put dragons and wizards in a novel and readers will expect—and probably want—other familiar elements of fantasy. An author can challenge those expectations, but ought to understand them first—and have a compelling reason for departing from them.
The same practical thinking extends to prose, plotting, and characterization. Elegant language has its place, but beautiful sentences cannot rescue a story that gives readers no reason to turn the page. Neither does obedience to a fashionable writing rule prove that a story works.
There are dozens of examples of Larry and Steve peeling back the layers of this or that sacred rule of authorship, which would be enough for most writing podcasts to be effective, but WriterDojo doesn’t stop there. They take commercial success seriously too.
Recognizing the difference between writing precisely what you want and writing something people will pay to read is a useful skill. Sometimes those ambitions overlap beautifully. Sometimes they don’t. Correia and Diamond address that struggle without romanticizing the difficulties of making a living as an author or denigrating financial success.
This sort of real talk is exactly what independent creatives need: practical knowledge and professional standards from people who live it.
WriterDojo’s value also extends beyond its episodes. I’ve experienced that firsthand.
Larry and Steve established a Facebook group where listeners could gather and discuss writing. Early on, I started a thread asking members where they lived, hoping it might help writers organize local groups. As it turned out, we were spread too far apart for most of that, but a handful of us began exchanging stories online.
Shortly after that thread, I met fellow Dojo fan Mike Burke for lunch. During that conversation, Mike suggested we formalize our little online group—and the Alpha Mercs were born. We launched with approximately twenty members, all drawn from the WriterDojo Facebook community.
Larry and Steve didn’t organize the Alpha Mercs. We did that ourselves. But they created the gathering place that made those connections possible.
That gathering place helped writers find one another, pursue publication, and build something of their own. The advice is useful; the connections even more so.
Disclosure: I was a founder of the Alpha Mercs writers’ fellowship, which emerged from the WriterDojo Facebook community. Larry Correia and Steve Diamond did not organize the fellowship. Rightbacker receives no payment or affiliate commission for this recommendation.